Holidays on Ice

by David Sedaris

  I’m standing before you, the congregation of this simple, shack-like, Pentacostal church, because I care. I care about all of us. Now, I’m not stupid and I won’t pretend to be. I read the papers and magazines and know full well that one of your members is somewhat famous. She gave unto her only son a very special Christmas gift. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. (Smile at woman in question.) A court order prevents me from saying her name but you know who she is. She’s seated right now in this very room. Oh, she drew quite a bit of attention one year ago today when she presented her child with the greatest gift a person can give: the gift of life. Being local people you are all no doubt familiar with the story but please allow me to recount it in my own way because I like the sound of it. Call me crazy, but this story does something to me. One year ago on a frosty Christmas morning, a young widowed mother, poor as dirt but still attractive in her own way, took drastic measures in order to save the life of a five-year-old child who was dying of kidney failure. She had no health insurance or dialysis machine but she did have a heavy Bible which she used to whack the boy against the back of the head, knocking him out in order to spare him the pain that would follow. Taking a rusty penknife and a simple, dime-store sewing kit, the young woman proceeded to remove one of her kidneys and successfully transplant the vital organ into her son’s vulnerable body. She did this with no prior experience, completely ignorant of even the simplest of medical procedures. The child had a different blood type and the kidney was much too large for his body but still the organ took, defying all laws of science. This operation was performed not in a sterile surgical environment, but in a dark and dingy hay-filled barn not unlike a manger. There was manure in that barn. There were spiders and fleas but still the transplant was a success. The boy awoke and shortly afterwards was noticed happily playing in the bramble-filled ditch which constituted his front yard. A neighbor contacted the authorities, who were understandably stunned and baffled by the child’s complete recovery. When asked how she had managed to perform such complex and delicate surgery, the ignorant young woman said only, “I done it with the help of the Lord.”

  Now either she’s the biggest liar since my third wife, or a miracle took place in that squalid, tin-roofed barn, a miracle witnessed only by two goats, half a dozen chickens, and a gamecock with a broken leg. And unfortunately these animals, like the young woman herself, are refusing to talk. Reporters crawled out of the woodwork, nosing around for answers, but still she held her tongue. A world conference of surgeons flew in from the four corners of the earth and again, all she said was “I done it with the help of the Lord.” How’s that for some technical mumbo jumbo!

  Now, Folks, I can understand this frightened, law-abiding, modest countrywoman turning away the wolves from the tabloids who only want to feature her as the current freak of the week alongside the camel who thinks he’s a kitten or the fat man lifted by a crane through the roof of his trailer. These tabloids only want to exploit. They don’t understand this woman and her life. They don’t understand you, let alone someone like me. If you want my opinion, they’re nothing but savages and we’d be better off without them. Forgive me if I’ve offended anyone but sometimes a person just has to let loose and speak his mind.

  Let me point out that there are quite a few perplexing questions involving this incident. For example, isn’t it funny how this poverty-stricken young widow could have an attorney but not a washing machine? That’s right, she’s being counseled by her brother, who just barely managed to pass the state bar exam after attending some fourth-rate state college. The man is a loser but he calls himself a lawyer. Go figure. She’s been charged with no crime but still I can understand her desire to be counseled and protected. Her brother is a public defender, a man who chooses to spend his life representing thieves and rapists. Here’s a guy who sits down and shares his sandwich with the scum of the earth, and he’s advising this young woman on how to lead her life?

  Now I’m not putting down lawyers, I’ve got a whole team of them myself. They help me out every time I need a divorce or sign the lease on a new ranch or pied-à-terre. They defend me when I’m wrongly accused and they also advise me in terms of money because that’s what a good lawyer can do, protect you from making bad choices.

  Let me break this down into terms you might be able to understand. Let’s say that someone offers to buy your prize piglet for seven dollars. Now maybe that would cause your ears to prick up, but a good lawyer would advise you to wait and see what other offers might come in. Two days later Scat Turdly may want to give you twelve dollars for that piglet, and the day after that Old Man Warner might promise to pay you twenty dollars. The point is that you want to take the best offer but at the same time you’ve got to think fast. Wait too long and that prize piglet will grow into a bearded old sow with none of its youthful charm. It’s like that with stories as well. Sit on something too long and eventually you won’t be able to give it away, much less sell it. Now a good lawyer is graced with a keen sense of timing forged by years of experience in the entertainment industry. A good lawyer seizes the moment and closes a deal that will benefit both himself and his client. A bad, self-serving public defender will do no such thing. This young woman’s brother has foolishly respected his client’s desire to turn down all offers in regard to her story. Even worse, he’s placed a restraining order against the very people who are trying to help bring this story out from the shadows and into the light. I can understand turning away the book and motion-picture people, but this is TV we’re talking about! (Slap Bible for emphasis.) Someone less scrupulous than myself could produce an unauthorized version of this story, maybe shifting a detail or two in order to avoid a crippling lawsuit. They could, for instance, make a two-hour television movie about a Buddhist grandmother who transplants a spleen while kneeling in a pup tent over the long Fourth of July weekend, but me, personally, I don’t want to do that.

  The fact of the matter is, that until this young woman agrees to sit down and reason with us, we have no story because, without her cooperation, there’s no way of knowing what really took place in that godforsaken barn on the morning of Christmas one year ago today. And it’s a tragedy that her son is no longer available to fill in the missing pieces. Here this woman sacrificed one of her own kidneys in order to save the boy’s life and six days later he was struck down by a remote location satellite truck. Unlike certain other people, I respected her grief and kept my distance for the better part of a week, allowing this woman, in her own private way, to come to terms with her terrible irony. I even offered the use of my own personal team of lawyers, hoping that she might sue the owners of that satellite truck because, I don’t know about you, but it makes me mad as hell to see a child run down by an inferior network. Speaking through her brother, the young woman declined to initiate a lawsuit or even to press charges. Anyone with the brains of a common gnat would have squeezed those bastards for all they’ve got, but this simple countrywoman chose instead to shut herself away with nothing but a Bible to ease her terrible pain. It was her right to decide against a lawsuit, but to turn down my generous offer to dramatize her story is an act that borders on madness. It’s been rumored that she is motivated by her deeply held religious beliefs and that is why, on this Christmas morning, I am turning to you, her fellow parishioners.

  Let me just lay my cards on the table and give it to you straight. You are a poor people. But you don’t deserve to be. I’ve spent some time in this area and have seen your pathetic, ramshackle houses resembling so many piles of firewood. These are places I wouldn’t use to store a lawn mower, let alone raise a family. People in our inner-city ghettos are riding around in brand-new Jeeps, yet you walk to church every Sunday, lucky just to have shoes on your feet. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here it is, Christmas Day and your children probably woke to find a kneesock full of twice-chewed gum or a doll made out of used Band-Aids. I’m not putting down handmade gifts, but don’t they deserve something better than what you can c
urrently afford to give them?

  I’m going to be honest with you people. The truth is that your minister is not just “running late” for this morning’s service. He’s right outside this building, settled comfortably into the backseat of my car. I’d approached him a few days ago, asking if I might address the congregation. He said, “No sir, you may not.” Then I showed him some blueprints drawn up by one of our country’s most prestigious architects. They’re the plans for your new church because, People, this one is coming down. (Hold for applause.) The bulldozers are arriving first thing tomorrow morning to begin construction of a magnificent temple designed by the same man who brought us the Wasp’s Head Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The new steeple will playfully resemble a hypodermic needle. You’ll have stainless-steel pews and a burnished concrete altar so big even the Catholics will be jealous.

  This new church is a Christmas present. A very expensive Christmas present from me to you with no strings attached. But a new church won’t put food in your stomach or pay the doctor bills the next time little Jethro swallows a fistful of thumbtacks. What if I was to tell you that, in return for one small favor, I’d be willing to offer a little help in that direction? Ladies and Gentlemen, this is one year when Santa’s definitely coming to town. The question is: Do you welcome him with open arms or turn him away, much like a certain young woman and her devious brother to whom money means nothing?

  You know, flying in early this morning, I thought I might offer each of you a brand-new car and a thousand dollars in cash. Now, though, looking out over your kind, sallow faces, I’m thinking of upping that to a brand-new car, a factory-fresh side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, and twelve hundred dollars in cash. Sound good? (Raise eyebrows, establish eye contact.) That’s what I promise to give each and every one of you if you can convince this young woman to help me tell her story. Apparently the finer things in life mean nothing to her, and so be it. But is it fair for her to force you, her friends and neighbors, to suffer the same lifestyle?

  By refusing to sign my contract and spend an afternoon recounting the facts to me and my topnotch writers, this young woman is ensuring that none of you will ever experience the pleasures that most civilized people take for granted. She’ll be saying, “Fine, let their newborn babies die of malnutrition and staph infections.” She lost her son the hard way and maybe, in her mind, you should, too! Me, I’m more than happy to provide you with a clean and modern building in which to hold their sad little funerals. If, however, you want the money to prevent such wasteful, untimely deaths, you’ll have to talk it over with your so-called Sister. Maybe you can reason with her.

  Is this the Christmas your holiday dreams come true, or is it the day you discover just how petty and spiteful one person can truly be? If, like her, you’re not interested in money, cars, and appliances, you could still convince her to sign the contract and then donate your rewards to charity. You’d have a pretty hard time finding people less fortunate than yourselves, but if that’s your bag, I’d be more than happy to respect it. Giving is what the holiday season is all about. I’m giving you a brand-new church and you don’t even have to thank me for it if you don’t want to. That’s not why I gave it. And if you don’t want to repay me by talking some sense into your friend, then I’ll just take it on the chin and head on home. I’m just wondering how easy it will be to sleep tonight with your threadbare blankets and Christian ethics knowing that somewhere outside your plastic-paned windows an old crippled woman is begging for coins in some glass-filled gutter because you were too wrapped up in yourself to give her a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. Because, let me tell you something, not giving is no different than taking. (Good point. Let it sink in.)

  I was going to leave you with that thought but, as long as I’m here, let me add a little something else. Even if you refuse to reason with this young woman, I will still produce my holiday special. This, though, will be my story, requiring the help of no one. It will be about a small group of so-called evangelical Christians so busy rolling on the floor and beating their tambourines that they’ve forgotten what Christmas really stands for. It won’t have an uplifting seasonal message and may very well send a good twenty million children off to bed thinking that perhaps this God person isn’t everything he’s cracked up to be, that maybe they’re celebrating the birthday of a con artist no different than the stick figures worshipped by the Pygmies or the Moslems. I’m going to write that idea onto a piece of paper (pull out pad, scribble) and hand it to one of my associates just as soon as he returns from his vacation in Bahoorahoo. I’d prefer to do the more compelling story of your young friend, but that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is up to you. It takes time to produce a topnotch holiday special and my people need to get on the stick if we’re going to have something ready for next Christmas. Do the catering trucks roll into town early next week, loaded down with cola and mouthwatering pasta salads, free of charge to any shabbily dressed church member wanting to earn good money as an extra? Or do we film an uglier version of the story on some faraway soundstage? One year from today will you be seated on a nice new sofa, watching as this young woman’s heart-wrenching miracle is brought to life on your wide-screen TV, or will you be picking the thorns out from between your toes and wondering where you went wrong?

  Maybe you can let things happen in their own sweet time but me, I can’t wait that long. I have a plane to catch early this afternoon, so that leaves you with three hours to hash things over with your young friend. That’s three hours without commercials, which amounts to two hours and twelve minutes in my time. Your minister has refused to address the topic in his holiday sermon, so he’ll be talking about something else. Eventually though, he’s going to stop talking and you will have to start thinking. And I would advise you to think carefully. All I’m asking for is a few details. They’re little things, details, but they can make all the difference in the world when it comes to fulfilling a dream. Maybe while you’re thinking you can entertain a few detailed dreams of your own. I want you to imagine yourselves leaning back against the warm, fragrant upholstery of a brand-new automobile. Your healthy children are still fighting over who got to ride in the front seat but you don’t allow that to bother you. In time they’ll return their attention to that bounty of toys lying at their feet. Back at the house the ice cubes are eagerly awaiting the kiss of a finely aged bourbon, and there’s still enough money in your wallet to make your neighbor jealous. It’s Christmas Day, and all is right with the world.

  Christmas Means Giving

  For the first twelve years of our marriage Beth and I happily set the neighborhood standard for comfort and luxury. It was an established fact that we were brighter and more successful but the community seemed to accept our superiority without much complaint and life flowed on the way it should. I used to own a hedge polisher, an electric shovel, and three Rolex gas grills that stood side by side in the backyard. One was for chicken, one for beef, and the third I had specially equipped to steam the oriental pancakes we were always so fond of. When the holidays rolled around I used to rent a moving van and drive into the city, snatching up every bright new extravagance that caught my eye. Our twin sons, Taylor and Weston, could always count on the latest electronic toy or piece of sporting equipment. Beth might receive a riding vacuum cleaner or a couple pair of fur-lined jeans and those were just the stocking stuffers! There were disposable boats, ultrasuede basketballs, pewter knapsacks, and solar-powered card shufflers. I’d buy them shoes and clothes and bucketfuls of jewelry from the finest boutiques and department stores. Far be it from me to snoop around for a bargain or discount. I always paid top dollar, thinking that those foot-long price tags really meant something about Christmas. After opening our gifts we’d sit down to a sumptuous banquet, feasting on every imaginable variety of meat and pudding. When one of us got full and felt uncomfortable, we’d stick a silver wand down our throats, throw up, and start eating all over again. In effect, we weren’t much different from anyone else. Christmas
was a season of bounty and, to the outside world, we were just about the most bountiful people anyone could think of. We thought we were happy but that all changed on one crisp Thanksgiving day shortly after the Cottinghams arrived.

  If my memory serves me correctly, the Cottinghams were trouble from the very first moment they moved in next door. Doug, Nancy, and their unattractive eight-year-old daughter, Eileen, were exceedingly envious and greedy people. Their place was a little smaller than ours but it made sense, seeing as there were four of us and only three of them. Still though, something about the size of our house so bothered them that they hadn’t even unpacked the first suitcase before starting construction on an indoor skating rink and a three-thousand-square-foot pavilion where Doug could show off his collection of pre-Columbian sofa beds. Because we felt like doing so, Beth and I then began construction on an indoor soccer field and a five-thousand-square-foot rotunda where I could comfortably display my collection of pre-pre-Columbian sofa beds. Doug would tell all the neighbors I’d stolen the idea from him but I’d been thinking about pre-pre-Columbian sofa beds long before the Cottinghams pulled into town. They just had to cause trouble, no matter what the cost. When Beth and I built a seven-screen multiplex theater they had to go and build themselves a twelve-screener. This went on and on and, to make a long story short, within a year’s time neither one of us had much of a yard. The two houses now butted right up against each other and we blocked out the west-side windows so that we wouldn’t have to look into their gaudy fitness center or second-story rifle range.